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Sunday, October 9, 2011

Seeing Stars

Its the Canadian Thanksgiving this weekend and I hope my Canadian readers are enjoying family and good food! Its a busy time of year with getting the flower beds and gardens cut back for winter and other preparations. We were both inspired to get out and get busy one day and it seems our timing was perfect as its rained ever since!

I have been soldiering on and finally wove off the last of eleven yards of kitchen towels. The first post ishere including the draft and story. Since then that loom has been busy every day with weaving the yardage off and makes for dull reporting! My Louet has been sitting idle and 'naked' (horrors!) but that's changing soon. More on that another time. :)

Since this warp was all white with a few stripes, I can recall going through 3-4 cones of 8/2 cotton while winding the warp and about the same again as I wove. Once the warp came off the loom and I carried it all rolled up to the sewing table I was quite taken with the sheer weight of all that effort!

This is nine of the ten towels all rolled up beside the serger, with the first towel stretched across and being trimmed up on the serger. I usually cut and tie onto my new colour of serger thread and pull through. An acceptable cheat I think given the dismal all black and white hand drawn sketch of where the threads go for all four cones! Well, I forgot to take off the tension and some threads broke mid way. Two hours later I finally had it rethreaded and now my machine and sketch are colour coded against future faux paus. Something I should have done years ago!

So here they are all folded and piled up waiting for the hemming !

I didn't think you'd want to wait another week or so while they are hand hemmed! They'd look like this after anyhow :)

They are quite different from my other towels I've woven up in the past two years. Simpler pattern, and colours. They were easy to thread and treadle and I wove one up every day at 34 inches (okay most days!)

They are also a bit different in how I placed my pattern stripes. Its hard to show you clearly so I got out our little step ladder and took this picture. Not very artistic but it gets the point across!

(Click to enlarge) The hems will be a small rolled hem so they are generous sized towels. I'll have to check the shrinkage once wet finished. There are blue stars on the front and yes, it finally worked out right so they are reversible and have white stars on the back:

Once the holiday weekend is over, all heck is going to break out around here (again) as the work will begin on hooking the newly dug well to the house which is 300 feet away. Our driveway will look a bit rough for a few days. Three days if things go well and five if not! Wish us luck! I am so looking forward to a shower with full normal water pressure again...

Oh, and our new well is 'artesianing' as we found to our surprise! The water level had filled all 182 feet of the pipe, plus the two feet above ground and has been trickling out the top cap. This caught our plumber by pleasant surprise and apparently its a good thing! We will have lots of water for all our needs.

10 comments:

Lovely towels, Susan! I'd almost forgotten what a challenge it is to thread the serger; it has been so long since I've had it out and used it. It really does make sense to use that for these projects. I need more space so that it can stay out and be ready to use. As always, your work is beautiful and so fun to 'watch'. Happy Thanksgiving !!

The towels look lovely, very fresh and classic ! I don't envy you the hemming mind you !! You say it will be a small rolled hem so that is something different ! How to do pictures would be good please !

Dee: yes it is possible! Send me your email address to weeverwoman at yahoo.com and I'll send you a copy of a 4 shaft draft.

Dorothy: I don't mind the hand hemming! I just work away on them one by one at night while we watch the telly. Mind you these need to be ready for the sale later this month so a bit more pressure on these than normal :)

Don't you find that heavy roll of hand weaving so rewarding to pull off the loom? The classic blue and white is lovely and you're right they are a real departure for you....I love them! So happy to hear that water issues will shortly be a thing of the past! You deserve to have a break from all the hectic issues that have cropped up lately, and a long hot shower may just do the trick!

Hi Susan,I notice you mentioned to someone that you could send them a "star" pattern for a 4 shaft loom. Question will it work on a counter balance loom, or does one need a jack loom? If it works on a counter balance loom, I would love to have the pattern. Weaverly yours ...... Barbara

Hi Barbara,I just took a look at the jpeg image I have of the draft. It uses 4 shafts and 8 treadles! The draft is 1 shaft against 3 for half the treadles and then flips and is 3 shafts against 1... so I don't think this will work for you. I could send you the image if you like. Send me an email to:weeverwoman at yahoo.com

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About Me

I have been weaving now for twenty two years. Gosh where has the time gone? :) My studio space is home to a Louet Spring 90 with twelve shafts, and also a Megado 110, computer interface with 16 shafts. **(If a search brought you here for a Woolhouse Tools loom or 20+, I can assist you, but I no longer own one)**
I like finer threads and natural fibres such as silks and exotic blends, linen and cottons. I also love tencel and its bright colors.
Please find useful links to past posts by subject matter under the tab "Short Cuts".
Thanks for being a reader of my posts and visiting! Susan